TURA, July 20: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Tuesday said his government has a commitment towards the farming community of the state and is engaging with them through different programmes to comprehend their issues and concerns.
“Our visit to Songsak is aimed at understanding issues and problems being faced by the people at the grassroots level. As a government, we want to formulate better programmes and policies that would benefit our people,” he said, while interacting with farmer-producer groups and agri entrepreneurs at Prime Hub Songsak in East Garo Hills.
The chief minister was also accompanied by government chief whip, Marcuise Marak.
The chief minister also informed that the government is leveraging the potentials of the farmers by adopting various beneficial initiatives for them.
“Prime Hubs are one such initiative of the state government to handhold our farmer-producer groups, and agri entrepreneurs. Through this, we will help our farmers to realise better incomes by providing them with better market credit linkages, technical know-how and value addition to their products,” the chief minister added.
Informing that the government is in the process of setting up Prime Hubs across Meghalaya, the chief minister, during the programme, also distributed cheques among the farmer-producer groups.
Farmer-producer groups comprise individuals with similar farming and income-generating activities, who collectively come together under a single platform.
Each individual in the group is provided a financial aid of Rs 5,000 as seed capital. The chief minister, during the programme, informed that the government has earmarked a substantial amount for the farmer-producer groups. “SHGs and Nano enterprises can also avail interest-free loans from the initiative,” he added.
During the interaction, the SHGs and farmer-producer groups spoke about various problems being faced by them. Some of the issues highlighted were access to good markets for their produce, connectivity, finances, access to quality seeds and planting material, et al.
During the programme, select beneficiaries also petitioned the chief minister for more training on scientific management of plantations to which the latter assured of looking into it.
Conrad also distributed certificates to beneficiaries who completed a three-month training on masonry/plumbing at Bakdil Training Centre, Walbakgre Tura, funded by the Meghalaya Basin Development Agency.
